Coursework
All highest rigor (Honors). Dual Enrollment senior year (college courses + Internship). Will have 24 college credits upon HS graduation.
Highest math will be Probability/Stats and College Calc
STEM magnet school, so in addition to Bio, Chem, Physics, also took Biotethics, Biotechnology, Advanced Biotechnology, Experimental Design. Also college Biology.
3 years of language (Spanish), 4 years of English, 3 years Social Sciences
-National Honor Society/National Technical Honor Society
-Research/ Publications: Waksman Summer Scholars (published 4 gene sequences in GenBank), Waksman Student Scholars (published multiple gene sequences).
-Internship with Startup Biotech, co-publishing new technology with founder and supporting pharma research
Extracurriculars
-Business owner (started biz at age 12)
-Advisory Council representative (representing students)
-Peer Leader
-STEM club project lead (placed 5th in state)
-STEM Summer camp counselor
-JV Volleyball captain, Varsity player since sophomore year, Club volley (recruited for 18 National team at age 16)
-Volunteer SAT tutor through Schoolhouse World
-First Aid Squad cadet
-Lifeguard year round
-Local farm employee
-Fitness club
-Multicultural club
-Literary Club
-Ski/Snowboard Club
Cost Constraints / Budget
$45k/year
Schools (List of colleges by your initial chance estimate; designate if applying ED/EA/RD; if a scholarship is necessary for affordability, indicate that you are aiming for a scholarship and use the scholarship chance to estimate it into the appropriate group below)
Safety: Seton Hall (EA), University of South Carolina (EA), U of Arizona (Rolling), Loyola U Chicago, TCNJ, University of Alabama Birmingham, St. Louis U
Match: UMBC Meyerhoff Scholar (EA), Pitt (Rolling), Lehigh (RD), Lafayette (RD), Case Western Reserve (EA), UMass Amherst (EA)
Reach: Boston U (RD), Northeastern (EA), Georgia Tech (EA), Tulane (EA)
I feel as though many of your matches and reaches might be too costly given that you need merit. I would keep UMass and Pitt. I don’t know a lot about UMBC.
I am not familiar with all of your safety schools, but you seem to have a few good ones (affordability).
Based off your list, some other schools she may want to investigate include:
Creighton (NE): About 4500 undergrads
Marquette (WI): About 7700 undergrads
Miami (OH): About 17k undergrads
Ohio U.: About 18k undergrads
Rensselaer Polytechnic (NY): About 5600 undergrads
Saint Joseph’s (PA ): About 4200 undergrads
Syracuse (NY): About 15k undergrads
Texas Christian: About 10k undergrads
U. of Cincinnati (OH): About 29k undergrads
U. of Delaware: About 19k undergrads
U. of Kentucky: About 22k undergrads
U. of Louisville (KY): About 16k undergrads
U. of Miami (FL): About 12k undergrads
U. of Minnesota - Twin Cities: About 36k undergrads
Ohio freezes tuition for each entering cohort for four years, so Miami, Ohio U., and Cincy would cost the same in tuition your D’s first year as her last year, a nice benefit in comparison with other schools that go up 4-5%/year. Additionally, U. of Cincinnati has a strong co-op program, if that’s something that appealed to your daughter about Northeastern and Georgia Tech.
Love your list if your budget was $60-70k. . Love Pitt and it’s ok to keep but the odds of hitting cost -maybe 1-5%. Maybe. It’s an admission safety btw. Apply early for best odds at $$
Lehigh, Lafayette, Case - again u can apply but assume you’re not going from a financial POV.
If you are interested in RPI, ask your GC to submit your name for the RPI medal which will award you $120,000 if you attend. You are notified May of Junior year, so you know before applying that you are already qualified for significant merit if the price is a concern.
I certainly hope Rutgers is not scary as my daughter is heading there for grad school. The science campus did not seem scary at all (not sure what that means), the neighboring area is very nice, and none of the students who are currently in her program ever stated that they felt unsafe. We walked/drove around the campus and area around the school and really liked it. The Busch campus is not pretty like some other schools, but my daughter never cared about that and the academics are very strong.
It is a big campus, and I certainly understand how it might feel too big for undergrad, for some students.
Rutgers and Boston University have a similar number of students (around 36,000). BU is also big- the city is essentially the campus. Does the student feel that Rutgers is bigger than BU?
I think you have other large campuses on this list, but you also have TCNJ so I think it’s fine.
From an admissions perspective, this is a very good list and your daughter should be accepted to many of these schools. However, many of your match and reach schools are likely to be unaffordable with the budget you have available since you won’t qualify for need-based aid. For example, BU (a very tough admit already) only offers merit aid to 8% of students and their average merit award isn’t enough to bring the cost down to the budget you have.
I agree with others that some of the schools on your original list might be miscategorized with respect to getting schools within budget. I suspect that some of the schools are the Hail Mary types, hoping to get one of the half-tuition or full tuition scholarships. Schools that need that type of scholarship should be placed in the reach category.
This site has aggregated the merit aid data from many of the schools’ Common Data Sets (CDS) so you can see the percentage of students without need who received merit aid and what the average merit aid package was for those students: Merit Aid by Institution – College Transitions. This may influence how many schools you thus deem to be in the Reach category and whether your family wants to make your list more balanced.
Is your D going to stop playing volleyball in college, meaning not being recruited?
I agree this list is a good start, especially if she would be happy at the safeties (not sure SLU or Loyola will get to your price but worth it to try).
I also agree with the others who said that some of the reaches are unlikely to get to your budget, if she’s accepted. How would she handle that for example if BU accepts her but it’s not affordable? You don’t have to answer that publicly, but that can be difficult for a HS senior.
I second Creighton for sure, and could get to your price. Good luck.
When I say scary, attempted robberies, harassment, etc. A friend of hers us tranaferring out as he runs in the morning and has been stopped numerous times from people asking for money. Im down there every weekend visiting family further south, and ive had people approach my car telling them to give me money. I expect this in Baltimore, not in New Brunswick. Great school, completely agree but the neighborhood has become a little sketchy.
I like Creighton and Marquette. She initially wasn’t thrilled about the locations but lots to like in terms of prospective majors, access to researxh, etc.
